A Lieutenant's Power

Lieutenant Scheisskopf is a very interesting character in this story. He trained Yossarian when they were still in America. In this section, Yossarian is remembering Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s obsession with parades while they were in training. In training, whichever squadron could march the best in the weekly parades won a yellow pennant on a pole. Yossarian saw these pennants for what they truly were: worthless. Lieutenant Scheisskopf, on the other hand, wanted them so badly he made his squadrons practice marching until they won. The Lieutenant’s wife hated the fact that he was so obsessed with parades. She was constantly trying to get his attention but never could. Instead, she had affairs with all the other men in the squadron.

The next section on Lieutenant Scheisskopf interested me even more than this though. He traps one of his cadets, Clevinger, in a silly game of trying to do the right thing. Their conversation went like this:
Lieutenant: “In sixty days you’ll be fighting Billy Petrolle and you think it’s a big fat joke.”
Clevinger: “I don’t think it’s a joke, sir.”
“Don’t interrupt.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And say ‘sir’ when you do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Weren’t you just ordered not to interrupt?”
And it goes on. The reason this passage struck me as interesting was because of the utter simplicity of this humor. I mean, this is the sort of humor we could find in a children’s slapstick movie. Yet it is still so funny.